The St. Bernard is sensitive to a degree, and seldom forgets an insult, which he resents with dignity.  Specimens of the breed have occasionally been seen that are savage, but when this is the case ill-treatment of some sort has assuredly been the provoking cause.

The dogs at the Hospice of St. Bernard are small in comparison with those that are seen in England belonging to the same race.  The Holy Fathers were more particular about their markings than great size.  The body colour should be brindle or orange tawny, with white markings; the muzzle white, with a line running up between the eyes, and over the skull, joining at the back the white collar that encircles the neck down to the front of the shoulders.  The colour round the eyes and on the ears should be of a darker shade in the red; in the centre of the white line at the occiput there should be a spot of colour.  These markings are said to represent the stole, chasuble and scapular which form part of the vestments worn by the monks; but it is seldom that the markings are so clearly defined; they are more often white, with brindle or orange patches on the body, with evenly-marked heads.

In England St. Bernards are either distinctly rough in coat or smooth, but the generality of the Hospice dogs are broken in coat, having a texture between the two extremes.  The properties, however, of the rough and smooth are the same, so that the two varieties are often bred together, and, as a rule, both textures of coat will be the result of the alliance.  The late M. Schumacher, a great authority on the breed in Switzerland, averred that dogs with very rough coats were found to be of no use for work on the Alps, as their thick covering became so loaded with snow and their feet so clogged that they succumbed under the weight and perished.  On that account they were discarded by the monks.

In connection with the origin of the St. Bernard, M. Schumacher wrote in a letter to Mr. J. C. Macdona, who was the first to introduce the breed into Great Britain in any numbers:  “According to the tradition of the Holy Fathers of the Great Saint Bernard, their race descends from the crossing of a bitch (a Bulldog species) of Denmark and a Mastiff (Shepherd’s Dog) of the Pyrenees.  The descendants of the crossing, who have inherited from the Danish dog its extraordinary size and bodily strength, and from the Pyrenean Mastiff the intelligence, the exquisite sense of smell, and, at the same time, the faithfulness and sagacity which characterise them, have acquired in the space of five centuries so glorious a notoriety throughout Europe that they well merit the name of a distinct race for themselves.”